Responding to the GOP Convention

You have to hand it to the Republican Party for the theatrics and distractions we've seen this week in Minnesota. Try as they might to pretend that they bear no responsibility for the state of George W. Bush's America, there aren't enough smoke and mirrors and fear tactics to disguise the facts. Millions of lost jobs, the highest unemployment rate in five years, 46 million Americans living without health care, millions more facing foreclosure and the loss of their homes, $4 per gallon gas, an $800 billion dollar annual trade deficit, and $700 billion that flows each year out of our wallets to pay for foreign oil. America's working families know the real deal, and they want change.

Last night John McCain took a page from the Obama script and pledged he would bring change to Washington. But you can't cover up the fact that John McCain rode shotgun with the president as he drove us into the ditch, voting with Bush 90% of the time. That is not a maverick, that is a copy cat.

Last week we heard the Dems talk a lot about hope, about change, and about possibility. This week we got a very clear, and familiar refrain from the Republicans. Be afraid, be very very afraid. Same fear mongering, newer flag. We heard the visionary chants of Drill Baby Drill, during a speech by Sarah Palin, who may well be the only person left in America who does not admit that global warming is in fact caused by human behavior. McCain says he is for developing alternative energy sources, but that is hardly straight talk from a Senator who has missed virtually every key vote on funding for those sources in the last several years. But let's not confuse the issue with the facts, please!

No, instead, let's take a hit at the community organizers of the world. Yes Sarah Palin, they are the real problem and must be singled out. Those crazy idealists who think you can actually improve the world if you get people together, my gosh even poor people, or god forbid, poor people, workers, and the clergy, to try to claim their rights and hold government accountable! In the real America where Republican cuts to social services have left many without any safety net, it is community organizers who rally parents to fix their schools, and families to reclaim their neighborhoods.

Enough is enough. Service, be it military, or community based, is something we should all be celebrating in our neighbors and our leaders. Like patriotism, it isn't owned by one political party, it is a valued and treasured ideal. Sarah Palin's broad brush dismissal of Obama's experience gained working as an organizer is just further evidence of how out of touch she and McCain are when it comes to the needs and experiences of working families and the institutions they create on their jobs and in their neighborhoods.

Now that the bizarro world has pulled out of St. Paul, let's take a deep breath, face our real challenges, and return to the facts. In the face of globalization and corporate influence run amok, community organizers and Unions give working Americans their greatest shot at our most treasured goal, living the American dream. Union workers make 25% more in wages, are 59% more likely to have health care benefits, and are over four times more likely to have a secure retirement package at work than non-union workers. They provide an essential, and yes, democratic, balance in their worksites and in many corporate boardrooms.

Time and again polls show that workers want to and would join a union if they didn't have to risk their livelihood to do so. They know from hard experience that workers in organizing campaigns get fired for being pro-union every 23 minutes in this country, and that government's current National Labor Relations Board takes years to settle most cases of unjust firings. The government also serves the bidding of multinational corporations who use trade deals to give your job away and then pay you an unfair wage for work that is about to be outsourced overseas anyway. Just ask John McCain, because he's never seen a trade deal that he didn't vote for. While he is voting to pass tax cuts for employers who send our jobs overseas, we'll keep on building our movement in the streets and at the worksites.

Workers in America are not greedy, they just want a level playing field and the chance to leave their kids a better life than they've had. That is why Change to Win is fighting so hard to elect Barack Obama, to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, to create universal health care for all, to stand for a new trade agenda in America that focuses on good jobs here at home, and to address climate change by advocating for rebuilding our economy around good, green, union jobs that grow the middle class and help save our planet for our children to enjoy.

Change to Win knows that the most credible voices that must be heard are those of the workers who make this nation run, three shifts a day, seven days a week. That's why we created the McCain Truth Squad, a group of nine workers traveling through nine states to spread the truth about the real consequences of a McCain presidency. These workers are starting the second leg of their tour in St. Paul this week to separate the facts from the fiction presented at the GOP convention, and talk about John McCain's Bush inspired voting record and what it means for workers.

And we are having fun too, with Real McCain of Genius, an online video series that highlights McCain's controversial housing comments and policies through parody.

That's why we launched www.worsethanbush.org, a hub for videos of workers across the country to tell their stories of what life has been like over the last seven years and to ask John McCain questions about his record and agenda.

All of these programs represent a different approach for Change to Win and for the labor movement. We're giving working families the clear facts that will cut through the noise of this convention and all its political theatrics. Check out our site, join our events, walk some precincts with us, and let's dig in together to help our working families get a real shot at the American Dream.

Comments

[Rescisco]

The change promised by Republicans is that we will go from "bad" to "worse..." and blame it all on Democratrs and the media.

[vanso]

If two canditates are asking for your vote one is offering HOPE the other is pandering FEAR please choose HOPE (Bill Clinton)

[JohnKdrew]

All this old-guard parade is terrible... how can anyone STILL pretend that global recession or global warming are not happening? I wish that he had chosen otherwise -- or that she is prepared to learn... . We have too little money to fix EVERYTHING that climate breaks. Triage is applied in an emergency to allow the most globally beneficial use of inadequate resources. There will be severe climate disruptions, which will be left untreated because they will be recognized as able to recover autonomously. Selected climatically-induced emergencies where tax-payers" money can reduce suffering will be funded. Last, and most sadly, there may be even situations where unlimited funds cannot reverse impacts and the limited funds are deemed better deployed on other projects for more go to www.climatechangetriage.net

[RepublicanBrain]

And here we go again with the whole "hope" nonsense. This and that about topics that everyone seems to love, but no one has any idea what it means to actually implement them.

If wishing were all things took to get what you want, we'd be set. There'd be no Obama clamoring for change, we could change things ourselves. But, that's not possible. Obama doesn't have the ability to pull things off. Creating a universal health care system is not the same thing as grassroots activism, and even Obama will admit to that. It's significantly expensive to start; time-consuming to implement, and (and this is something liberals ignore) most of the nation has health insurance already. Unions are rife with mismanagement and corruption like any organization. Alternative fuels do not pop out of thin air: Oil is necessary until they are created.

All liberals can sell is a pipe dream and let the people's imagination fill in the blanks. To those of us who can see through this, we decided on candidates who can actually see through this. Even Hillary had some accomplishment.

[research]

Lying again: bet you were rejoicing in Rayguns message of hope.

Lying because you are afraid Obama HAS the ability to get universal health care enacted.

Lying that we should not like unions because they have been accused by you lying GOP of being as corrupt as other organizations.

Lying that oil will "pop out of thin air" but existing solar wind and plug in hybrids are magical thinking.

Lying by projecting the pipe dreams the GOP uses to steal from the masses onto the liberals.

We all see through your GOP's compulsive lying.